I told you! What should Canon and Nikon do?

I told ya weeks ago how Canon and Nikon have been dissapointing.
I'm glad I'm not the only one with that same feeling.
Here is a video from the camera store guys that pretty much echoes this thought.

For real it's time for canon and Nikon to wake up! bring something new to the table! Whatever happened to Innovation. As far as I'm concerned, I'm good in the mirrorless world.

Then I read something today about Nikon having bad sales and forecast right now. wow

Wood made bench in the middle of nowhere

Wood made bench in the middle of nowhere

This was shot a while ago, like 2 or 3 months ago. I really like the scene. I had to get really low in order to place the line of coconut nut trees just on the edges of the bench. Those are small tips that improve the composition in this. I edited it in such a way that it almost looks like a painting. That's the look I was going for with this image.

By the way this was really in the middle of nowhere, wonderful area to hangout and relax. I'll keep this place secret for now.  

The unique brownish furniture store that I almost missed

The unique brownish furniture store

This is probably one of my favourite photo.
It looks different compared to what I usually shoot; and it almost looks like those guys posed for the picture.

The true story is that they didnt even know I was taking photos. That's what makes this photo so special to me.

So I was at this art exhibition, you know those types of fairs where these craftsmen sell their work. It was indoor (low light conditions, I had to raised the ISO 1600 I think). So I'm walking around with my other half/manager/assistant/best friend/...Dayly peace and I happen to see this beautiful furniture store. That girl in the back is texting, those 2 men up front are focused, one on his tablet, the other on a paper is reading, that scene was magical, I took the shoot. Next second I show it to Dayly peace, who tells me "It could have been nice, but it's blurry" yeah yeah yeah ,

Indeed it was blurry. I realise that when I zoomed on it.The blurry shot was mainly due to me shaking just a little while pressing the shutter.

I swallowed my pride (lol), point the camera at them, hold it steady this time, and notice that the girl is stretching herself out, now she's in this awesome position (no pun intended) that looks like she's posing for the photo. I shot it.
Now you get this gorgeous looking store, with each individual focused on whatever he/she is doing, among all types of beautiful objects and furniture.

If you look closely you can see the tag "Vendu" (Sold) on some of the items.

Got back home, put it in lightroom and applied one of my own made presets. It was perfect for this shot.
I love that overall brownish color of it.

The Amazing App

The Amazing App

I finally was able to show them my secret app. The expression on their faces tells you how amazing this app is. I bet some readers here would like to know the name of that app. I'll tell yall later.
Enjoy your week.

Making of Long and Whining Road

Here is the making of The Long and Whining Road. I shot it last week. The name of the image is obviously a play on the song Long and Winding Road by The queen of soul Aretha Franklin (Probably my favorite female artist of all times). Anyway...

As I mentioned in a previous post, the inspiration for those images comes from close people around me. Generally from Dayly peace or from my niece. It's basically me exaggerating a funny scene that happened in our lives, of expanding an idea, an action or thought coming from them.

Once I got the idea, I draw it in Paint (as you can see in the beginning of that video). After that I can shoot the models and different items that will be in the image and eventually go out shoot the background. There are many tips and tricks on how to shoot the models, extract them, and blend them with the background. There's even a specific way of shooting and preparing the background.

For this particular image, I didnt shoot he background, I used a free stock image, but I felt the sky was boring, so I blend it with a sunset from another image. I got it from a free stock image site. (By the way I need to credit the guys from who I got those, I'll do it when i trace it back).

The key in composites like this is the lighting. You need to figure out the light source and process everything accordingly (Shadows, glows, model shooting...the list goes on).
The hardest thing is Photoshop, you need to know the basics, I'm still figuring things out everyday.

The best feeling is when I compare the initial drawing to the final image. It's Priceless.
 If you have any questions about how to make composite, hit me up on twitter, Facebook or Google plus. I'll be glad to help.

I'm working on several images right now. I need to draw.

I'm out.

Long and whining road

Long and whining road

I've always wondered why women travel with so many luggages.

I've been working on this image for 2 days. I'm pretty happy with the result mainly because I only use natural light for it. As I said one these composite images are fun to make. 

They are an exaggeration of whatever is going on in my life, so that's basically where I find the inspiration for them. I building a whole portfolio of them called THE TURN (like the second phase of a magic trick you know...)

Thank to my gorgeous model Daylypeace who was patient enough while I was taking the shot. 

This was made with 5 different images and a bunch of photoshop layers. I might post an actual tutorial for this someday. 

Won't do too much talking...

Enjoy ya week.

Double wine barrels

Shot this 2 days ago. This is a spot where they only sell south african wine. I had no flash, no light, no....whatever. Just a NEX F3 and an assistant/model/manager/wife to be, the lovely Daylypeace.
I made the best use of that natural. I was kinda skeptical at first but it came out better than i expected. There's a lot of post processing involved in order to get there.